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•ii-iS ^m<!l^ 







DANGERS AND DUTIES. 



reoo]^steuotio:n^ ai^d suffeage. 




^ CLEVELAND, 0. 







Jr^ JbJ J±j C_^ _E3_ I J 



"^fp-i 



OF 



HON. GEORGE W. JDLIAN, 



DELIVERED JN THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF KEPKESENTATIVES 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND.,ON FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 17, 1865 

IN RESPONSE TO AN INVITATION FROM THAT BODT. 



CINCIJSTNATI: 

GAZETTE STEAM PKINT, NORTHEAST CORNEE FOURTH AND VINE STREETS. 

1865. 






WsBt. Ees. HlBt. Boc. 



SPEECH. 



The meeting having been organized by 
calling Gov. "Dunning to the Chair, Mr. 
Julian spoke as follows : 

THE SPEAKER, GOV. MORTON AND PRESIDENT 
JOHNSON. 

Mr. Chairman—Ladies and Gentle- 
men: Before proceeding to say what I 
propose to say to-night, I ask leave to 
make a simple statement, due to myself 
and to you. The charge has been circu- 
lated, through the press and otherwise, 
recently, that I have been making speeches 
inside of ni}- distiict and outside of it, de- 
nunciatory of Gov. Morton and President 
Johnson, and that I have been seeking by 
factious movements to divide and disorgan- 
ize the Union part}'. I think it due to truth 
to say that these charges are wholly un- 
founded. I have made quite a number of 
speeches during the last few weeks, 
but in not one oj them have J 
spoken of Governor Morton or Presi- 
dent Johnson in any other terms than those of 
perfect courtesy and respect. I have differed 
in some degree with President Johnson, as 
I understand his policy ; but I have never 
had a thought of indulging in any unkind 
words tov.'ards him, having known him 
since 1849, when we first met in Congress, 
and became personal friends thro; gh our 
earnest advocacy of the homestead policy, 
in which we stood almost alone. T arn quite 
sure that I still enjoy his respect and friend- 
ship. Nor is tliere any truth in the ciiarge 
that I am seeking to divide the Union 
party. On thecontrary, I have sought by 
all the means in my power to unite and 
consolidate that party in my district, in 
which I have almost exclusively labored. 
I am sure that my labors have not been 
wholly fruitless, and that today that party 
is more perfectly united and consolidated 
there than it ever has been at any pre- 
vious period of its history. 

THE REQUEST TO BE SPECIFIC. 

I ought, perhaps, to make another refer- 
ence in the outset. I have beec invited 



to address the people hero by some prom- 
inent citizens of this city, and by some of 
the members of the Legislature, and this 
hall has been tendered me for the purpose, 
subject to certain instructions. [Laughter.] 
It v/as thought wise to instruct me to be 
very explicit and unambiguous as to 
whether I agree or disagree with the poli- 
cy of President Jobnsi.n. "What will be 
the penalty of disobedience I am not ad- 
vised. 

I confess I am gratified— I really feel 
flattered to find, unexpectedly, that my 
opinions are of so much nnunent that the 
House of Eepresentatives of Indiana have 
seen fit to pass a resolution callmg for 
great carefulness on my part in 
their expression. [Cheers.] There 
may have been wisdom in doing 
this. A man who skulks habitu 
ally, and about whose opinions nobody 
ever coi/W learn anything very definitely, 
particularly on the subject of slavery and 
ami-slavery as connected with our politics, 
may properly be coerced into plainness of 
speech; it may be well enough to smoke 
him out, and compel him to declare him- 
self with definiteness. Certainly I have 
nc manner of complaint to make on that 
subject. I must say, however, that I feel 
some embarrassment as to the performance 
of the task assigned me. 

WHAT IS PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S POLICY ? 

If the House had told me what, in their 
opinion, the policy of President Johnson 
is, I could then have told you precisely 
whether I agree or disagree with him. 
But I find that Copperheads, some of the 
vilest and meanest of them, endorse in 
unqualified terms the policy of President 
Johnson. Now, certainly the Union men 
have not gone over to the Copperheads, 
and I doubt very much whether the Cop- 
perheads have been really converted and 
come over to us. There is, then, a differ- 
ence of opinion as to what the policy is. 
In requiring me, therefore, to say wiieth- 
er I approve or disapprove, I submit that 
it would have been proper for you, gentle- 



men, to h ive told me what in your opinion, 
the President's policy is. 

Theie is another ditKculty. President 
Johnson hirrijelf says his policy is merely 
an experiment, and perhaps he will aban- 
don it to-morrow. Then of what use 
would be your bill of discovery filed 
against me, requiring me to say whether I 
agree wiih him or not? 

These are revolutionary times. Mar- 
vellous changes in the opinions of men 
have been wrought within the past four 
years. The expressive wordb of the hour 
are, transition, growth, d^ velopment. Who 
can he so infatunted as to single out any 
present phase of our politics, and seek to 
stere()ty|)e it into a test of any man's po- 
litical urlhodo-vy ? If it be true that the 
policy of the President is simply th:'.t of 
referring the whole matter of reconstruc- 
tion to Congress, then I can say unequivo- 
cally that I am for it, for I believe deci- 
dedly that the business of reconstruction 
belongs to Congress. 

Upon the whole, gentlemen, I prefer to 
go on in my own way, and say what I 
think, explicitly, as I usur-lly do, leaving 
each one of j'ou to determine for himself 
the question as to whether I agree or dis- 
agree with President Johnson, and the far 
more important question, whether I am 
right or wrong in my views. 

DANGEES AND DUTIES OF THE HOUR. 

Let me now invite your attention to some 
of the dangers and duties of the hour; and 
I remark in the outset, that the only ques- 
tion that has been absolutely settled by 
this war is the fact that by numbers a' d 
violence we have mastered the rebels. 
All else is in dispute. Slavery is not cer- 
tainly abolished. The proclamation of 
Presiilent Lincoln did not pretend to abol 
ish the in-:iitutiou of slavery; and even the 
etfectof that proclamation in giving free- 
dom to the slaves in certain districts, 
remains to be adjudicated by the judiciary. 
Your constitutional amendment has not 
yet received the approval ot three-fourths 
of the States, which, according to the views 
of the Adm'nistration, is requisite to its 
adoption. The juestion of loyal suflVage 
in the South— the great question of the 
day — is one about which there is a wide 
difference of opinion, even among loyal 
men. Do you mean to gather the I'ruits 
of this war, or to scatter them to the winds? 
Shall you reap the rich harvest of victory 
now within your grasp and ready for the 
sickle, or allow it to be overtaken by 
blight? Through the madness of the 
rebels the way is opened up to this nation 
to a career. of glory, otherwise entirely 
beyond our reach. Shall we slumber over 
our grand opportunity? There has been 
no moiiHjnt in my judgment since the bo- 
ginning of this war, so full of ]ieril to the 
nation as the present. I may nsfer to the 
testimony of Governor J3rownlow, who 



says the only difference between the rebels 
of to-day and of 18C1, is, that a good many 
of them are under the ground. They are 
still unconverted, unregenerate, and the 
thorough reconstruction of Government 
and Society in the States recently in re- 
volt can never be accomplished by half- 
way measures or a temporizing policy. 

PUNISHMENT OF REBEL LEADERS. 

In myj'idgment, our first and immediate 
duty is the adequate punishment of the 
rebel leaders; [Cheers] the adequate chas- 
tisement of the villains who plunged the 
republic into war. This involves the 
whole question of the contest. Decide it 
right and it opens the way to a ready set- 
tlement of all the other questions in dis- 
pute. Decide it wrung and it gives to the 
winds all the fruits of your victory. 

I repeat it, this question involves the 
whole question of the war. For if treason 
is not a crime, but a mere difference of 
opinion, an honest mistake of judgment 
about the right of a State to secede-— if, as 
Lord John Kussell said, it was on the part 
of the North a war for jiower, and on the 
part of the South a war for independence, 
there being no other question in it; if the 
New Vork x ay B ok was right in >aying, 
the other day, that the whole coVitest grew 
out of a mere "misapprehension" between 
the North and South, then our war of 
four years, in which we professed to be 
patriots fighting for nationality and free- 
dom, is an insult to all the ages, a horrid 
mockery of the Almighty ; and we shall 
deserve, as we shall receive, the retri- 
bution due to our transcendent guilt. 
If, however, treason is a crime, and 
the highest of all crimes, including in it 
all lesser villainies, so that the rebels in 
compassing it had to run over the whole 
gami t of devilment and n.isehicf, ending 
their career in an infernal leap at the na- 
tion's throat; whj', then, at the end of 
this war you ought to make a fit example 
of these traitors, and thus render a repeti- 
tion of their crime difficult in the future. 

Suppose a man were to come among j'ou 
to-night, and could persuade j'ou that 
treason and loyalty were about the same 
thing; that right and wrong are converti- 
ble terms ; that the difference between vir- 
tue and vice, good and evil, is "all in your 
eye;" that God and the devil are the same 
personage under different names, and that 
it does not matter much under whose ban- 
ner you fight; suppose he could thus per- 
suade you to uproot the foundations of so- 
ciety and government, of everything sa- 
cred in heaven or on earth, he would bo 
the most execrable creature in the universe. 
If ho could indoctrinate you and the 
world with his ideas, ho would convert this 
beautiful earth of ours, "wrapped round 
will) sweet air and blest by sunshine,'' into 
a first class hell, and the d?vil would bo 
king, you dare not trifle with this ques- 



5 



tion of the adequate punishment of rebels. 
You lake the murderer here in Marion 
county, you indict him, try and convict 
him, build a gallows and hang him ; and 
the whole world says amen. The pirate, 
" the miserable pickpocket, boards a vessel 
oa the sea, murders a few sailors, steals a 
few ' ales of cotton, and the civilized world 
chases him to the gallows," as unfit to live. 
But Jeff Davis is not an ordinary assassin 
or pirate. He did not murder a single 
citizen, but he murdered in cold bhjod 
hundreds of thousands of men; he didn't 
board a ship on the sea, and murder a few 
sailors, but he boarded t!.e great ship of 
state, and tried by all the power of his 
evil genius to sink her, cargo and crew, 
with the hopes of the world forever, into 
the abyss of everlasting night ! And his 
guilt is as much greater than that of an or- 
dinary assassin as the life of a great Re- 
public is greater than the life of one man. 
Each one of these leaders was a national 
assassin, with his dagger in his hand, aim- 
ing it at the nation's vitals; aiming to 
plunge it into the white breast of the 
mother who bore him and nurtured him 
from infancy ; and his guilt is to be mul- 
tiplied and compounded by the millions 
whose interests were put in peril. 

INDICTMENT OF JEFF. DAVIS. 

Suppose you were to indict Jeff. Davis 
to-night, as our fathers indicted George 
III ; the indictment would read about in 
this way : He has murdered 300,000 of our 
soldiers ; mangled and maimed for life 
300,000 more; he has duplit-ated these 
atrocities upon his own half of the Union, 
and upon his own miserable followers. 
He has organized great conspiracies here 
in the north and northwest to lay in rapifle 
and blood the towns, and villages, and 
cities, and plantations of the whole loyal 
portion of the land. He has sought to in- 
troduce into the United States, and to 
nationalize on this continent, pestilence in 
the form of yellow fever; an enterprise 
which, had it succeeded, would have 
startled heaven itself with the agony and 
sorrow it would have lavished upon the 
land. He has put to death by the slow 
torture of starvation in rebel prisons, 
60,000 of our sons and brothers. He has 
been a party to the assassination of our 
martyred President. He has poisoned 
our wells; planted infernal machines in the 
track of his armies ; murdered our wound- 
ed soldiers; boiled the dead bodies of our 
boys in cauldrons, and sawed up their bon>.'; 
into jewelry to decorate the God-forsaken 
bodies of the " first families " of Virginia 
women. He has hatched into life whole 
broods of villainies that are enough to 
make the devil turn pale at the spectacle. 

He has done everything that a devil in- 
carnate could do to let loose "the whole 
contagion of hell" and convert the earth 
into a grand carnival of demons. 



But, gentlemen, we have caught him. 
By the providence of God, and through 
the vigilance of your soldiers, he is in your 
power to day. Now I would indict him, 
and pay him the compliment of a decent 
trial by the forms of law. I would convict 
him, and then build a gallows, and hang 
him in the name of God. [Applause.] Talk 
about mercy to Jeff. Davis! Why it is 
not in the dictionary 1 [Laughter.] It is 
like the Constitution in relation to the 
rebels, who have sinned away their rights 
under it by treason. It has ceased to exist, 
as to them. When you ask me to exer- 
cise raeroy at the expense of justice, 
1 decline. I know nothing about mercy 
when you can only reach it by tramp- 
ling justice under foot. I don't ask 
vengeance. Davis has committed 
treason, and the Constitution says the 
punishment of treason shall be death. In 
the name o? lialf-a-million soldiers who 
have gone to the throne of God, as wit- 
nesses against "the deep damnation of 
their taking off" — in the name of your 
living soldiers — in the name of the repub- 
lic, whose life has been put in deadly 
peril — in the name of the great future, 
whose fate to-day swings in the balance, 
depending on the example you make of 
treason, I demand the execution of Jeff. 
Davis. And inasmuch as the gallows is 
the symbol of infamy throughout the 
civilized world, I would give him the gal- 
lows, which is far too good for his neck. 
Not for all the honors and offices of this 
Government, would I spare him, if in my 
power. I should expect the ghosts of half 
a million soldiers would haunt my poor 
life to the grave. 

And I would not stop with Davis. Why 
should I ? There is General Jjce, as hun- 
gry for the gallows as Davis. [Applause.] 
He is running at large up and down the 
hills and valleys of Old Virginia, as if 
nothing at all had happened; and lately I 
have heard that he has been offered the 
Presidency of a college; going to turn 
missionary and schoolmaster, I suppose, 
to "teach the young idea how to >• hoot" ! 
At the same time he is to write a history 
of the rebellioa. Gentlemen, I would not 
have him write that history. I would 
have it written by a loyal man, and I 
would have him put in a chapter giving 
an account of the hanging of Lee as a 
traitor. [Cheers.] What right has Lee to 
be running at large, while the Govern- 
ment thus confesses thai treason is no 
crime? What right has he to be any 
place, without repentance, except in 
the ninth, or lowest hell, where Dante says 
all traitors are found ? 

What right have you to cheat the Con- 
stitution out of his neck ? I notice that 
Wirz, some days before he was hung, sent 
for a copy of Baxter's Call to the Uncon- 
verted. I would give Lee a copy of the 
same book, but I would let him be hung, 



and leave God to determine what should 
be done with his soul. [Applause.] 

Nor would I stop with Lee. 1 would 
hang liberally while I had my hand in. 
I would make the gallows respectable in 
these latter days, by dedicating it to Chris- 
tian uses. I would dispose of a score or 
two of the most conspicuous of the rebel 
leaders, not for vengeance, but to satisly 
public justice, and make expensive the 
enterprise of treason for all time to come. 
I wish we could hang them to the sky that 
bends over us, so that all the nations of 
the earth might see the spectacle, and 
learn what it costs to s t fire to a free 
Government like this. [Cheers.] If 
these men are not punished, and you allow 
the infernal poison to sift itself down into 
the general mind thsit treason is no crime, 
in a little while we shall bo shaking hands 
with our dear Southern brethren, the Gov- 
ernment will get back intg its old ruts, 
and another horrid war will be the har- 
vest of our recreancy to our trust. 

CONFISCATION OF LAKGE ESTATES. 

But suppose you were to hang or exile 
all these leaders— for if you don't hang all 
of them you should put them out of the 
way — your work then, is only just begun.* 
You ought, in the next place, to take tlieir 
large landed estates and parcel them out 
among our soldiers and seamen, and the 
poor people of the South — black and 
white — as a basis of real democracy and 
genuine civilization. [Cheers.] Why, 
yonder is Bob Johnson, of Arkan- 
sas, an. arch rebel leader, who 
owns forty thousand acres of rich 
land ; enough to make four hundred 
farms for so many industrious loyal men. 
I would give the land to them, and not 
leave enough to bury his carcass in. And 
yonder is Jake Thompson, one of old 
Jimmy Buchanan's beloved, and beautiful, 
and blessed disciples; the man who stole 
our Indian bonds, and who is so mean 
that I could never find words to describe 
bim. lie owns forty thousand acres or 
more, and I would tak? it and divide it 
out in tlie way mentioned. The leading 
rebels in the South are the great land- 
lords of that country. One-half to three- 
fourths of all the cultivated land belongs 
to them, and if you would take it, as yuu 
have the right to do, by confiscation, j-ou 
would not disturb tiie rights of the great 
body of people in the South, for they never 
owned tiie land. I had tlic honor to prt- 
pose, in a bill I introduced into the last 
Congress, this identical thing. It has 
passed one House by n large majority, but 
has failed thus far in the other. If you 
don't do something of that kind, you will 
have in the rebel States u .'system of serf- 
dom over the poor almost a.s much to be 
doplored ns slavery itself. llich Yan- 
kees will go down there — and I don't want 
to abuse the Yankees, for thty have made 



this country what it is, but there are 
Yankees who believe that the almighty 
dollar is the only living and true God ; 
[great laughter,] and it is said some of 
ihem would wade into the mouth of hell 
after a bale of cotton. [Renewed laugh- 
ter.] I d(m't know whether that is so or 
not, for I have never seen it tried. But 
there are men v/ho would go down and 
buy up these estates, and establish a system 
of wages-shxf ery. of serfdom, over the 
poor, that would be as intolerable as the 
old system of servitude. You would hive 
the state of things in Mexico repeated, 
whore one man owns land enough to make 
a State as large as Rhode Island ; or in 
England, where one man can mount his 
horse and ride a hundred miles to the sea 
on his own land, and where all the land is 
owned by one five-hundredth part of the 
population. Themostdegraded class ofpeo- 
ple on the face of the earth, almost, are the 
English agricultural laborers, sunk so low 
in the scaTe of civilization that you can 
compare them to nobody so fitly as to the 
sand hillers and corn crackers of South 
Carclina and Georgia, whom even the 
negroes call the "poor white trash." 

You see, gentlemen, why it was that Eng- 
land built and furnished the rebels with 
iron-clads and other means ot warfare. 
They knew the success of the North would 
be the prelude to the overthrow of their 
landed system. 

They knew, in the language of Thos. 
Carlyle, that the success of the Union 
ca\ise in this country would send England 
to democracy' on an express train; and it 
will, if we arc faithful. She is on the 
brink of a volcano that threatens to swal- 
low her up. 

Any one o." these mornings the landless 
laborers of England may rise up under 
some bold captain, and march to the gates 
of power and demand a home upon the 
soil, and a ballot with which to defend it; 
and they may drench that land in blood 
if their demand is not heeded. 

Do you want to see her condition re- 
enacted in those fair regions of the South? 
No, you want no order of nobility there 
savethatof the laboring mass s. Instead of 
large estates, widely scattered settlements, 
wasteful agriculture, jiopular ignorance, 
social degradation, the decline of manu- 
factures, contempt for honest labor, and 
a pampered oligarch}-, you want small 
farms, thrifty, tillage, free schools, social 
independence, flourishing manufactures 
and arts, respect for honest labor, and 
equality of political rights. You can lay 
hold of these blessings, on the one hand, 
or these corresponding oursi;s on the oth- 
er, just as you please. Those regions are 
in your plastic hands, to be cursed with 
evils or endowed with blessings for all 
coming lime. Uo your duty in this gold- 
en moment, and the hills and valleys of 
the South will lift up their voices in 



thankfulness to the Author of all good for 
their new birth and glorious triinsfigura- 
tion; and the people of the South and tlie 
people of the North will become iigain 
one people, united iu patriotic aspirations 
for their common country. [Cheers.] 

SOMKrniNQ ABOUT NEGROES. 

But suppose you have hung or exiled 
the leaders of the rebellion, and disposed 
of their great landed estates in the way 
indicated ; your work is then only half 
done. Without something else, you will 
fail after all to reap the full rewards of 
your sutferings and sacrifices. In order 
to complete your work of reconstruction, 
you must put the ballot into the hands of 
the loyal men of the South ; and this 
makes it necessary for me to talk about 
this negro question a little. I am sorry 
about this, for you know how gladly I 
would avoid that subject if I could. I 
hardly ever allude to it in my speeches 
unless it gets right in my way, and then I 
only take it up to remove it, so that 
I can get along. [Smiles and laughter.] 
I warn j'ou, however, not to get excited 
at what I am going to say until you 
know what it is ; for maybe none of you 
will disagree with me, and it is not worth 
while to anticipate trouble. Let me say 
to you, too, by way of quieting your 
nerves, that I won't preach in favor of 
black suffrage to-night, nor wliite sutlVuge. 
All that I want is loyal suffrage, without 
regard to color. Now, that is a fair propo- 
sition. [Applause.] I will tell you 
another thing, by way of consolation ; I 
won't preach any of my "radicalism" to- 
night; I won't urge any of my fanatical 
notions. The fact is, I have got to be a 
conservative lately. I wish simply to 
present some of the old conservative doc- 
trines of the founders and franiers of the 
republic — men whose memories you all 
revere, and whose counsels you will be 
glad to accept if you are loyal; and every- 
body is loyal now, or ought to be. 

NEGRO VOTING IN THE PAST. 

During the war of the Revolution, that 
primitive era of the nation's life, that 
golden age when public virtue and pri- 
vate, swayed all hearts, negroe.'' voted in 
all the States, or colonies of the Union, 
except South Carolina, poor sin smitten, 
God forsaken spot, that might have been 
sunk in the sea forty years ago, without 
material detriment, and without, in my 
opinion, disturbing Divine Providence in 
His manner of governing the world. 
[Laughter.] In every one of the States, 
except South Carolina, the negroes had the 
right to vote, and in most of the States, 
exercised the right. Washington, and 
Jefferson, and Jay, and Hancock, and 
Hamilton every year went up to the polls, 
and deposited their ballots where the ne- 
itroes did theirs, and I never heard that 
' ney weredefiled, or the Union particular- 



ly endangered. They stood up for the 
equal rights of all free men at the ballot- 
bcx, without respect to color. And after 
the war of the Kevolution was over, you 
remember that they had to go to work to 
reconstruct the Union, just as you propose 
to go to work to reconstruct your Union. 
Under the old articles of the Confedera- 
tion there was no bond of Union except 
that of patriotic sympathy, and the dog- 
ma of State rights came near "playing the 
devil" with them. Each State could do 
as it pleased. At the end of the war they 
were compelled to goto work and make 
"a more perfect Union," and inthiswork 
of m; king a better Union the free negroes 
had the right to vote in all the States ex- 
cept South Carolina. They voted under 
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe and Jackson. In five of the New 
Engla.nd States, and in New York, they 
have been voting ever since. In Pennsyl- 
vania they continued to vote until 1838; 
in Maryland and Virginia they voted un- 
til 1832 or '33; in New Jersey until 1839 
or '40; and in North Carolina and Ten- 
nessee until 1835. Some of my North 
Carolina friends here will remember that 
George E. Ba'Jger was elected to Congress 
by negro votes; John Bell, of Tennessee, 
also; and old Cave Johnson, on finding that 
he was about to lose his election, emanci- 
pated abont fifteen or twenty of his ovax 
slaves, and they wont up to the polls and 
elected him to Congress [Laughter.] 
Now I have thought that as the negroes are 
now all free down there, we might extend 
this Democratic precedent a little further. 
[Laughter.] Even Andrew Jackson, old 
Hickory himself — who was a good Dem.o- 
crat in his day, though he would not pass 
muster now — the old hero who praised the 
negroes for fighting so well under him at 
New Orleans, and who enjoyed their grati- 
tude and respect — when a young man, start- 
ing out as a candidate for the Legislature, 
called on the negroes to help him, and 
they helped him, and elected him. I think 
if old Jackson could do so naityhty a thing 
as to allow those negroes to vote for him, 
it would not disgrace a Copperhead to 
have one or two vote for him, if they were 
so crazy as to vote on that side. [Laughter.] 
And the word "white" that you have 
got to putting into your laws, is a latter-day 
device. During a good many years of the. 
nation's life, the word "white" was not in 
your laws of Congress, territorial bills, nor 
State codes. Washington and Jefferson, 
I am satisfied, believed as I do, that the 
negro himself would have been born white 
if he had been consulted. [Great laughter.] 
He came into the world under the best 
possible circumstances he knew how; and 
they never dreamed of the ineffable mean- 
ness of stripping a man of his political 
rights simply on account of the color of 
his skin. It was reserved for latter-day 
Democrats — the horse-stealing, the slave- 



8 



breeding Democrats of a comparatively 
recent period. When they got hold of 
the ropes of the r-^public and were run- 
ning it to the devil, and the slave power 
owned us all, the word "white" was incor- 
porated in your laws; and inasmuch as 
this hatred of the negro race caused slavery, 
and inasmuch as slavery has been abolish- 
ed, at great cost of blood and money, 
would it not be a good idea, some of these 
days when you have nothing else to do — 
say some Sunday afternoon for instance — 
for you all to sit down and see if y()U can- 
not purge your hearts of this negrophobia, 
which has caused all this tribulation in the 
land? I merely make the suggestion for 
you to tiiink about. But the point I wish 
you to keep in mind is, that I am preach- 
ing none of my radicalism at all. If you 
would- give the ballot to the negro in 
the revolted States, you v.oull be simply 
following in the footsteps of the framers 
of the Government — returning to that 
policy, the abandonment of which has 
brought upon us all the desolation of war. 

UIS CLAIM AS A SOLDIER. 

But I would give the ballot to the negro 
for another reason. We ''ailed upon him 
to help us, and he has helped us. We tried 
with all our miLht to save the Union, and 
to save slavery with it. We had got it 
into our heads that the stars of our flag 
^vere for the whites, and the stripes for the 
blacks; that there was some sort of Siam- 
ese union between freedom and slavery, 
rendering them one and inseparable; that 
we had to save the Union, but that we 
must also save slavery with it; and our 
partnership with Satan came near ruining 
our cause. The fact is, men never make 
bargains with the devil without getting 
cheated. [Cheers.] So it was with us; 
we repudiated the divine counsel for two 
years uf the war, and when at last we con- 
cluded to deal justly — when the question 
became one of salvation or damnation to 
the white man ; when the Union was about 
to perisli in the red sea of war, into which 
our guilt and folly had tumbled it, we 
called on these wronged people to help us. 
They fout,'ht side by side with our white 
goldieri, fighting so well that our Generals 
praised them for their bravery and endu- 
rance. You remember that Father Abra- 
ham in his message told you that without 
the help of the negro population the Union 
would have perished; he freo^uently sai 1 
that without striking at slavery and arm- 
ing the ncfgroes, foreign intervention and 
war would have been inevitable. Has it 
never occurred to you, when denouncing 
the negro, that the nation lives to-day, and 
did not perish, because of those black 
auxiliarii^h yo'.i called into the service? 

In traveling over the country, I ccn- 
Rtantly h<;ar some slimy copperhead say- 
ing, " Daniii the nigger,!" when not more 
than two years ago that same copperhead 



might have been seen perambulating tho 
c luntry, hunting up a negro to stand bet- 
ween him and the bullets of the rebels, to 
save his cowardly carcass from harm. We 
had 100,000 black soldiers, and they ena- 
bled that manj' white men to stay at home 
and raise supplies for the army. 

The copperhead hunted his black sub- 
stitute, found him, hired him to go; he 
went, fougnt liLe a hero, rushed into every 
ugly gap of death his commander told 
him to enter; and now, on his safe return 
the copperhead looks down upon him and 
says, " Damn tho nigger! — go back to your 
old master, I am done with you !" Is this 
a specimen of your magnanimity and 
manhood ? 

My conservative friends say to me, "Is 
it not strange that the soldiers are against 
negro suffrage in the South ?" Gentlemen, 
I know of no question of negro suffrage 
connected with our national politics, ex- 
cept as between the loyal negro, and the 
white rebels of the South. 

Now, gentlemen, have you a soldier 
among you who hates the loyal negro who 
fought fur his country, more than he hates 
the white rebel who fought against it? or 
Avho, if the ballot is to be given to the one 
or the other, would give it to the white 
rebel in preference ? c r who, if the ballot 
is to be given to the white rebel, would not 
checkmate him by giving it to the loyal 
negro at his side ? Have you any civillian 
among you who would espouse the ca«se of 
the white rebel in the cases I have sup- 
posed ? If j'ou answer these questions in 
the negative, then you are with me on the 
question of negro suffrage. 

Gentlemen, when, two or three years 
ago, the Government decided that the ne- 
gro was fit to carry a gun to shoot rebels 
down, it thereby pledged itself irrevocably 
to give him the ballot to vote rebels down 
when it should be necessary. And the na- 
tion never can go behind that act. If it 
could, after calling on the negroes to help 
save the nation's life, hand them over to 
the tender mercies of their old tyrants, the 
nation would deserve to perish for its wick- 
edness; and it would. So heaven daring 
an act could not be perpetrated in this^ 
land without receiving the retribution it 
would merit. Negro suffrage in the South 
is a chapter in the history of this contest 
as sure to come as was the arming of tho 
negro, and you who oppose it would do 
well to stand out of the way, for it will 
sweep over you as remorselessly as would 
tho tides of the sea. 

ins niGHT TO RKPRKBKNTATION. 

But I would give tho negro the ballot 
for another reason. Before the war broke 
out, tho South, on the basis of its negro 
population had eighteen members in Con- 
gress. Now they will have twelve addi- 
tional members, or thirty in all, based up- 
on a population that is dumb. Subtract 



^ 



from the white voters in the South those 
of the white population that have l)een 
killed during: the war, and that have Iteen 
disfranchised since, and the voters of tliat 
section will not much exceed one-third of 
the whole. I always thought it bad enoufrh 
for one rehel to count equal to one loyal 
man, but when you put this trinitj' in uni- 
ty at my expense, I must kick against it. 

According to the census tables, thoiv; is 
a district composed of six counties in the 
State of Mississippi, containing a popula- 
tion of a hundred thousand people, three- 
fourths of whom are black. If these ne- 
groes are disfranchised, twenty-five thous- 
and white rebels will count equal to the 
hundred thousand white people in the 
Fifth District of Indiana. The vote of one 
Mississippi rebel, who ought to have been 
hung before to-day, will count equal to 
the votes of four loyal men in my district 
— four soldiers of the war, who have fought 
three years in the country's service. 

Are you safe under the operation of a 
provision so iniquitous as this ? It not on- 
ly disfranchises the negro, but it disfran- 
chises you. If one rebel's vote can equal 
the votes of two white men, it di franchi- 
ses, in eifect, one of them. It is like a two- 
edged sword ; it strikes the negro in one 
direction, and in the other it strikes you. 

REPUDIATION OF THE tTNIOX DEBT. 

If you tolerate this principle, if you 
don't give the negro the ballot, another 
consequence will come, and that is the re- 
pudiation of your debt. The rebels have 
contracted a debt of a thousand millions 
of dollars in trj'ing to whip us; and we 
have contracted a debt of more than a 
thousand millions of dollars in flL^"-ing 
them. If you hold their noses to the gri:;d- 
stone, as you ought to do, every doll '.r of 
their rebel debt is gone, and you will com- 
pel them to help pay our debt. They will 
hate that confoundedly, and will agonize 
day and night to find someway of escape; 
and they will not be slow in finding it. 
They are as unconverted to-day as ever, as 
I have proven by Parson Brownlow. They 
hunger and thirst for an opportunity to join 
hands with their old allies at the North ; 
and these allies, who only a year ago got 
up secret orders to murder you and usurp 
your State Government — most of you know 
them — are ready to join hands with 
their old masters. A small sum of money 
will buy Copperheads in Congress enough 
to give back to the South her ancient dom 
ination in the Union; and then they will 
repudiate our debt, and saddle upon your 
shoulders their debt, rendering us all the 
most pitiful vagabonds that were ever 
turned loose upon the world. 

Now, you white capitalists, who don't 
love the negro, but do love money, wheth- 
er you are willing- this state of things shall 
come about or not, it will come, unless you 
provide against it. You can save the 



country from this financial maelstrom sim- 
ply by dealing justly with the negro. 

DANGER OF INSURRECTiON. 

If you don't give the ballot to the loyal 
negro, and do give it to the white rebels, 
these latter, baling the negro to-day more 
than ever, b}- every memory of their hu- 
miliation, will make laws depriving him 
of his testimonj' in the courts, of the right 
to sul, of the right to own or hold real es- 
tate, of the rigljt to assemble for delibera- 
tion on their own aifairs ; thus making him 
sigh for the old institution of slavery as an 
alternative. In spite of all constitutional 
amendments that can be adopted, those 
States can do these things if only white 
men with rebel hearts are permitted to 
vote. The final result would be, that the 
millions of emancipated blacks would de- 
cline to be made sla'^es again. They would 
rise up in an insurrection such as the world 
has never seen. And we would be liable 
to be called upon to go down and cut the 
throats of those loyal negroes who saved 
the nation's life, at the bidding of rebels 
who plunged the country into war. I 
would not like to be invited to an enter- 
tainment of that sort, nor would j- ou. If 
you would prevent the necessity for it, 
unite with us in giving the ballot to the 
loyal negro in the South. 

TAXATION AND REPRESENTATION. 

I would give to the negro the ballot for 
another reason. Taxation and representa- 
tion ought, on principle, to go together. 
Our fathers fought for that principle seven 
years. Their title to glory and fame rests 
solely on the fact that they denied the right 
of England to make laws for those who 
were not represented in the law making 
power. Without this the revolutionary 
drama would be Hamlet with Hamlet 
omitted. You cannot deny the democracy 
or the republicanism of that principle, 
and you cannot decline to extend it when 
such a grand opportunity is ofi'ered. If 
you may disfranchise four millions of ne- 
groes to-day, you may disfranchise two 
millions of Irishmen to-morrow, and three 
millions of Germans the next daj', and the 
laboring many, the "filthy operatives," the 
next. You will soon have erected on the 
ruins of the Republic of your fathers, an 
absolute despotism extending over tha 
whole land. It is policy not to make this 
false step. Suppose you were to make a 
law disfranchising all the Germans or all 
the Irish, or all the short men, or all the 
tall men in Indiana, they would give you 
a hundred times more trouble than if you 
were to give them their rights. It wtuld 
tax all the cunning of your rulers to keep 
them down and prese.ve peace. Wher- 
ever there is a downtrodden race clamor- 
ing for its rights, the best possible thing to 
be done is to give them a voice in the gov- 
ernment. They will then feel, even if 



10 



things don't go just to suit them, that they 
have a vote and can help chan,,e it at the 
next election. 

Such H policy will make every man a 
column of strength, in support of the pub- 
lic edifice, instead of an element of weak- 
ness and a source of danger. 

COPrERHEADS AND REBELS. 

I would give the negrothehallot for an- 
other reason, and that is, that every rebel 
in the South, and every Copperheaci in the 
North is opposed to nrgro suffrage. If 
there were no other arguini;ut than this I 
would be in favor of giving the negro the 
ballot. \V'hen you know a man to be ir. 
sympathy with, and doing the works of the 
devil, have you any doubt as to whether 
or not you are on the Lord's side in fight- 
ing him? And when you hear the rebels 
of the South and Copperheads of the North 
denouncing negro futt'rage. can't you swear 
you are right, in fiiy. ring it, without the 
least fear of a mistake in your oath ? 

QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS. 

But there is an objection to the proposi- 
tion to which I wish to call your attention. 
It is said that the negroes are unfit to vcte 
— that thej' are too ignorant; and I have 
heard it said that they need a probation of 
ten or twenty years to prepare them for 
the ballot; that they must have time to 
acquire property, knowledge of political 
rights and duties, and then it will do to 
give them the ballot. I don't understand 
that argument. When you commit the 
negro to the tender mercies of his old tyr- 
ant who proceeds to deny him all the ad- 
vantages of education, the accumulation 
of property, and all social and political 
privileges, how soon will he become pre 
pared for the ballot? You might as well 
talk about preparinga man to see by punch- 
ing out his eyes ; or preparing hini for war 
by cutting otf his feet and hands ; or pre- 
parin the lamb for security by commit- 
ing it to the jaws of the wolf. If you want 
to prepare the negro for suffrage, take off 
his chains, and give him equal advantages 
with white men in fighting the battle of 
life. Don't charge him with unfitness, un- 
til you have given him equal opportunities 
witli others. Gentlemen, who made them 
unfit? I think it was the rebels. They 
enslaved them, degraded them, brutalized 
them, made tiiem what they are; and after 
their wickedness bus brought on this war, 
and they are ma.^^tered, and the question of 
restoring government lo the South comes 
up, then rchels complain of the vnfitness of 
the negroes to vote ! They made them un- 
fit, and "no man," says the legal ma.\im, 
"shall take advantage of his own wrong." 

Are you poing to be verj' nice or fast- 
idious in selecting a man to vote down a 
rebel 9 I think the negro just the man. I 
would not have a Letter, if I could. Of all 
men ho is the most fit. 



The rebel, I know, won't like it. It will 
hurt him lo make his bed on negro ballots 
He will get mad enough to explode, al- 
most. Shall I pour out my tears over hia 
sorrows? I will save my tears for a more 
fit occasion. He sowed the wind, let him 
reap the whirlwind. He is the architect 
of his own fortune ; let him enjoy it. It is 
ordained by Providence that retribution 
shall follow wrongdoing. Are you going 
to rush between the rebel and the conse- 
quences of his infernal deeds? Let him 
reap as he has sown. For one. I have too 
much to do lo vex myself about how ho 
will fare under negro ballots. 1 am sure 
he will ge'. alone; as well as he deserves, 
and I prefer to leave the whole matter 
with the negro, as the the tables are at last 
turned in his favor. 

But what is fitness to vote? It is a rel- 
ative t&rm. Nobody is jDCT/eci^y fit to vote. 
I have never seen a man that was. A 
man would have to know all about consti- 
tutional law, the difference between State 
rights and National sovereignty, all about 
political economy, all about the duties of 
the citizen, ail about a thousand things as 
to which wise men differ. He would have 
to be an angel or a god. If you will find 
such a man, i will set him to voting. He 
will see exactly into the right and wrong 
of every question ; he will be a good deal 
more infallible than the Pope. But no- 
body I have seen fills that bill. We are 
all more or less unfit to vote and to dis- 
charge all our duties. Thit is all you can 
say about it, and if you were going to get 
up a scale of knowledge and virtue from ze- 
ro up to 100, I would be totally at a loss to 
find the point of den^arcation below 
which nobody should vote, and above 
which everybody might vote. I would 
have to make a sliding scale at first, and 
then I would throw it awaj' r.nd let every 
man vote who was loyal and of proper age. 
Fitness belongs not so much to indiiidual men, 
as to aggregate manhood. Who was it that 
saved your country during this war ? Was 
it the wisdom of your President, of his 
Cabinet, or of Congress, or of our great 
statesmen ? Why, they all blundered, and 
you know how often, all the way through. 
You furnished the Government with the 
men, and the mone}-, and the braii.s. It 
was your 'aggregate practical common 
•vfn.'fi that inspired your rulers at Wash- 
ington with the policy which saved us. 
It is the people of the United States who 
arc the saviors of the Union. Somebody 
has said that the English Parliament is 
wiser than any man in Pailiament. Your 
Congress is wiser than any man in (;on- 
gress; the nation is wiser than any select 
few in it. Any few of the wise men, who 
know it all, would "run the machine into 
the ground'' so quick that j'ou would bo 
glad to get back to the government of the 
people, bp the people, /or the people. As 
your poet, Longfellow, has said: 



11 



"It is the heart, and not tho brain, 
That to the highest doth attain." 

Show me a man whose heart is right, 
and he will do to trust all the time. The 
negro's heart has been right all through 
this war; true as the needle to the pole. 
[Cheers.] He never betrayed a trust; al- 
ways knew the difference between a gray 
co;it and a blue one ; always knew the dif- 
ference between treason and loyalty ; and 
that is more than Jeff. Davis has found out 
to this day, with all his knowledge. 

It is true the negroes cannot read or 
•write much; perhaps not one in forty or 
fifty of the field hands can read or write. 
The same, if not more, is true of the "white 
trash." "When you talk about disfranchis- 
ing the negro because he can't read or 
■write, you ought to apply your philosophy 
elsewhere. You have half a million of 
white men in the Union marching up to 
the ballot box who cannot write their own 
names. I believe that one-ninth of the 
adult people in Indiana can neither read 
nor write. You don't propose to disfran- 
chise them. The best educated country in 
the world is Prussia; everybody there is 
educated; and yet in Prussia, where you 
would suppose education had made free 
institutions, nobody votes. Education is 
not freedom. It does not fit any man in 
the world to vote. If it did, you ought to 
set Jeff Davis and the rebel leaders to vot- 
ing ever3r day, and disfranchise both white 
and black who cannot read and write. But 
if you did j^ou would soon have another 
war on your h",nds. The test will not d >. 
I recently wrote a letter to a friend, w' ait- 
ed for an answer, but did'nt rec: ive any. 
After a couple of weeks he came to me 
with the letter, saying, "I wish thee would 
read thy letter. I can't make it out. Thee 
can't write.'' The fact is, I never could 
write very well, and the rule would dis- 
franchise me, perhaps. Yet I might be 
perfectly fit to voto, and you might be 
able to write very neatly, a hand perfectly 
lovely to the eye, and yet you might '-e a 
miserable Copperhead, wholly unfit for the 
ballot. [Cheers and laughter.] 

The true way to fit men lor voting is to 
put the ballot into their hands. That's the 
the way to get at it. Suppose you want 
to teach your boy how to swim, and you 
won't let him go into the water for fear of 
drowning; he must stand on the land and 
go through the motions. How long, on 
a reisofable calculation, would it take 
to teach him to swim ? Y^ou want to teach 
these ignorant whites and stupid negroes 
how to vote. The first thing you have to 
do is to put the ballot into their hands. 

How can a man vote without a ballot? 
How can he cast a ballot if no man gives 
it to him? Give the ballot, and the ne- 
g'oes will say to themselves, "now we ar= 
invested with a power in the Government; 
we have a voice in deciding these great 
quest'ons ; we must read the newspapers 



and inquire of our neighbors who know 
more than we do." In this way they will 
learn something about politics, and how 
to vote intelligently. This is the true 
Democratic idea ; and until this ne^ro 
question came up, there never has been 
any test of fitness suggested, except that 
of age and sex. No test of knowledge or 
virtue has ever been hinted at by the Dem- 
ocratic I arty or anybody else till recently. 
Sir, I believe in the fitness of the people 
to govern ; and if you were to present to 
me the alternative of disfranchising a half 
million of our people, or of giving the bal- 
lot to ;i half million who have it not, I 
would give the ballot. In the one case I 
would open a vein, that might bleed the 
Republic to death ; in the other, I wou'd 
multiply the sources of public safety. I 
believe, religiously, in democracy ; in the 
fitness of the whole people to take care of 
the welfare of the whole people ; and 
while I would urge universal education, I 
would urge universal suffrage. 

HOW THE NKGROSS WILL TOTE. 

But I am told that the negroes will vote 
as their masters want them to. Do you 
believe it? Suppose they would; nobody 
would be badly hurt ; the matter would be 
no worse than now, for they all vote now 
through their old masters. But if half of 
them should vote the Abolition ticket, 
then half the rebel power would be de- 
stroyed; if three-fourths of them, then 
tbree-foui'ths of their power would be gone. 
But would they vote with their old masters ? 
They didn't fight with their old masters. 
You said if we put arms into their hands 
they would shoot at us. They never shot 
in the wrong direction yei. They knew 
exactly how to point their guns and bay- 
onets; and if they had brains enough to 
know that, how would it happen that they 
would become so oblivious that they would 
not know how to cast a ballot as well as 
a bullet? 

Did you ever know a stupid Irishman 
who did not know enough not to vote the 
Know Nothing ticket? Y'ou may take 
the lowest Irishman having the animal 
figure of a man, and you cannot find a 
man smart enough to make him vote any- 
thing but the Dimocv&\,\c ticket. [Cheers.] 
I believe it is possible the negroes might 
be persuaded to vote the Abolition ticket, 
considering the way they have been fight- 
ing. Every South Carolinian would be 
preaching negro suffrage with me to night 
if he thought the negroes would vote as 
he wanted them to. Doubtless the negroe? 
would sometimes vote wrong. When I 
remember that the slaveholders have been 
sharp enough to make fools of our wise 
men, have taken our great statesmen and 
molded them and licked them into the 
shape they wanted to have them, I admit 
that some of these stupid negroes migh t 
be induced to vote their old masters' tick- 



12 



ets. But wouW that be the first time men 
have voted wrong ? In my political ex- 
perience I have absolutely seen white men 
vote on the wrong side! Haven't you? 
I understand that even Democrats have 
voted wrong. To tell the whole truth, I 
understand that it was Democratic voting, 
bad Democratic voting, under the party 
lash, and in the i: terest of an institution 
alien to your welfare, bad, devilish, white 
voting that voted this country to the gates 
of death, and plunged it into this war. 
Why, the Copperheads are the last men in 
the worid to reproach t! e negro with 
being unfit to vote. If the Government 
should last a million years, no possible re- 
sult of negro voting could be worse than 
the result of Democratic voting for the 
last twenty years. 

I have known Republicans to vote 
wrong; Abolitionists, Freesoilers. I havp 
voted wrong several times myself, and I 
am sorry for it. We all make mistakes, 
and we all profit by our blunders. Could 
not the negro profit by his experience as 
well ? 

CONSTITUTIONAL PROTKCTION. 

It is said there is a way of avoiding this 
negro question by an amendment of the 
(3onslilution limiting representation in 
Congress to suflrage ; and then the rebels, 
in order to get back their power, will give 
the ballot to the negroes. This has been 
preached by respectable men and news- 
papers all over the country, and it has de- 
luded more men than any sophism I have 
encountered this j'ear. .But you cannot, 
in President Johnson's opinion, amend 
the Constitution without three-fourths of 
the States concurring, and these eleven 
rebel States being more than one-fourth, 
may not concur. And if you could thus 
amend the Constitution, it would take 
three or four years to accomplish it. But 
this question of suffrage and reconstruction 
is upon us and will not Avait. It meets us 
in December. Besides, the late slave- 
holders would as Eoon rush into a fiery 
furnace as to give the ballot to the colored 
people. 

Tlio leading men among them declare 
they would rather die than do it. It would 
be to Yankeeize and abolitioni/.e the wh(>le 
South. True, it would give back to the 
section her thirty voices in Congress, but 
they would be sent there by the Yankees 
and negroes and abi.litionisls, who would 
seethe old slave dynasty into "kingdom 
come" before they would see it restored. 
The whole idea isj)ure practical nonsense. 
The slaveholders could always have in- 
creased their power in Congress by simply 
giving freedom to their slaves; but they 
loved their domination over the negro 
more than they loved political power, and 
oven plunged the country into war in order 
to eternize their institution. The amend- 
iiicnt to the Constitution, as proposed, 



would be proper, and I shall vote for it ; 
but I would rather extend suffrage to rep- 
resentation than reduce representation to 
suffrage. The latter, as a solution of the 
suffrage question, is utterly futile. It is 
simply an attempt ta shuffle from our own 
shoulders a plain duty and saddle it on to 
the rebels, who never would perform it. 

NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN INDIANA. 

It is said that if we give the negroes t^e 
ballot in the South, we will have to give it 
to those in Indiana. Gentlemen, if In- 
diana had gone c t of the Union, and we, 
in trying to whip her back, had been com- 
pelled to call upon the negroes to help us, 
and when we had whipped her into the 
Union, we had not been strong enough to 
hold her there without the ballots of the 
negroes, you would have the case I am ar- 
guing as to the South. But if you secure 
equal rights and equal advantages to the 
negro, in the reconstruction of the South, 
under this inducement to our colored peo- 
ple to return to their sunny home, the ques 
tion of negro suffrage might never come in 
Indiana, if it thould come, 1 will be in 
favor of taking it up and dealing with it 
upon its merits. I am for taxation and 
representation everywhere throughout our 
country. But this question belongs to you, 
gentlemen of the Legislature, and Con- 
gress cannot touch it. Let me beg of you 
not to confound together very differ- 
ent questions. I confess and dejtlore the 
conduct of Indiana toward her colored 
people; but if our black laws were a 
thousand times blacker, it would be none 
the less my duty to the nation to plead 
for negro suffrage in the South. I do not 
do soon the ground exclusively of human- 
ity, or of justice to the negro, but on the 
more imperative ground of national sal- 
vation. I I'eel sure that the country can- 
not be saved and the fruits of our victory 
garnered, if the governing power in the 
South be committed to the fiands of the 
rebels. Let us settle this great national 
question, and then we shall be better pre- 
pared for minor ones. My conservative 
friends are grieved because I do not de- 
mand immediate negro suffi-agein Indiana 
as my "one idea." I am always glad to 
please these friends, and I am naturally 
amiable, but I must beg leave in this case 
to decline acceding to their wishes. 

NKGKO OFFICE HOLDING. 

Gentlemen, another objection I have 
heard to negro suffrage, is that th^y will 
hold all the ofhces in the South ; that the 
whites there will leave, and we shall no 
longer migrate there; tbat that region will 
grow blacker and blacker, electing negro 
Judges, negro Governors, negro Congress- 
men, «S:c., till the finale will be a war of 
races. This, 1 confess, is a dark picture. 
I cannot, however, feel alarmed. We 
Kadicals, dangerous as we are supposed to 



13 



be, will guard against these frightful results 
"What we deprecate is ha'te in reconstruc- 
tion. We have no thought, for example, 
of hurrying South Carolina into the Union 
with her ignorant negroes, and stupid and 
disloyal whites. "We want a season of pro- 
bation, giving us time to repeoplo the 
waste places within her borders ; time for 
Yankees and European- to take possession 
of the country and supply us with a loyal 
and intelliirent element. Then there will 
be no negroes holding ofBce unless a ma- 
jority of the people want them, and in th;it 
case a war of races will not be very prob- 
able. I have already referred to the policy 
of n gro voting in nearly all of the States 
for some thirty or forty years of our his- 
tory, and I believe it never led to negro 
office holding. Even in Massachusetts I 
remember no case of the sort. The only 
instance in my knowledge occurred in this 
State some twenty years 'go, in the election 
of a negro justice of the peace. Nor has 
negro voting ever led to social equality or 
miscegenation, to my knowledge. If my 
Democratic friends, however, feel in dan- 
ger of marrying negro women, I am in fa- 
vor of a law for their protection. I be- 
lieve the Republicans do not feel in any 
sort of danger. Gentlemen, seriously, the 
argument I am combating is worthy only 
of our Copperhead friends, and I hope no 
loyal man will ever defile himsell by wield- 
ing their despicable weapons. 

COLONIZATION — GEN. COX. 

But it is said, after all, that the true 
policy is not to give the ballot to the negro, 
but to colou'ze him ! Gentlemen, I trust I 
need not occupy your time with any argu- 
ment on this point. Certainly the poTicy 
of colonization in any foreign clime has 
found its place among the exploded 
humbugs of the age. Perhaps I should 
not wholly overlook the fact that Gen. 
Cox of Ohio has invented a new, and what 
he doubtless believes an improved plun of 
colonization, for Avhich, T presume, he 
means to take out a patent. He proposes 
to confine all the freedmen in some three or 
four States of the South, and hold them there 
as a dependency under the National Gov- 
ernment — a sort of African reservation. 
How he would get the two or three hun- 
dred thousand white people in those Stales 
out, having the right of locomotion and 
domicile, or how he would get the negroes 
in, having the same right, he has not told 
us. But if the whites were all out and the 
negroes all in, the real problem would still 
remain to be solved. Four millions of ne- 
groes huddled together, surrounded at 
every point of their border by a negro- 
hating, domineering white race, would 
furnish the world with a repetition, on a 
large scale, of those scenes of strife, border 
warfare, expulsion and extermination, 
vhieh we have seen enacted in the case of 
IT Seminole and Cherokee reservations. 



T need not dwell on this most impracti- 
cable of all projects, for by common con- 
sent it is rapidly passi ng out of the thoughts 
of men, as utterly unworthy of considera- 
tion. 

A MILITARY GOVERNMENT — NOBODT TO 
VOTB. 

There is another method of evading the 
question of negro suffrage which I some- 
times bear urged, and that is the establish- 
ment of a military government over the 
districts lately in revolt. The poor whites, it is 
said, are too ignorant to vote ; the negroes are 
in the same condition ; the rebel leaders are or 
should be disfranchised ; let us, therf fore, get 
up a military government, and let nobody vote. 
Gentlemen, I object to this policy -first, that a 
great standing army in time of peace is at war 
with all the maxims of our fathers ; next, that it 
would cost us irom one hundred to two hundred 
millions per year to maintain it, and you could 
not raise the money, having already a finanuial 
burden fidly sufficient for your shoulders; and 
finally, that a military government never would 
fit anybody to vote. Like the despotisms ot the 
Old World, it would unman, and dwarf, and par- 
alyze the people, rendering them more and more 
the mere helpless machines of the power that 
would use them. In fact, the proposition logi- 
cally contemplates the abolition of free institu- 
tions in all the insurrectionary districts, and is 
therefore utterly vicious. As I have argued 
elsewhere, the way to teach meu the use of the 
ballot is to give it to them, and the sooner you 
send them to school the sooner they will learn. 

DIVIDING THE UNION PARTY. 

Another objection to negro suffrage is that the 
agitation of the question will divide the Union 
party and aid our enemy. ''Don't spring it !" 
say my conservative friends, ''for God's sake 
don't spring it ! It will divide us and let the 
Copperheads of our State into power !" Well, 
gentlemen, I didn't spring it. The rebels sprung 
it when they brought on the war and necessitat- 
editsissues. The Government sprung it when it 
put arms into the hands of the negro. The < op- 
perheads spring it, and put it into their plat- 
forms, lly conservative friends spring it by im- 
ploring me wr)^ to sprinff it. [Laughter.] So the 
question is sprung. What will you do about it 'I 
"It will let in the Copperheads !" Suppose it 
should ; would that be any worse than lettin? in 
the rebels ? If we are to bring ourselves down 
to the level of the Copperheads in order to suc- 
ceed, meanly consenting to do their work, we 
may as well let them in regularly, at once. 
If the Union party can only be held together by 
trampling upon justice and the rights of man, 
the sooner we go to pieces the better. Don't ag- 
itate it! Keep still ! And so my conservative 
friends plead with me seventeen years ago. 
Their gospel was hush ! and as the slaves were 
in chains, if everybody would hush they would 
remain in chains, world without end. The same 
is true now of negro suS^rage. Agitation is the 
chosen means under Providence of carrying for- 
ward the truth, and the man who opposes it now 
is not for suflTrage at any time. "Be still ; wait till 
the country is ready for it!" But Providence 
has pretty much quit working miracles. Sup- 
pose He should send His lightning, as He did in 
the conversion of Paul, and instantly convert us 
all to negro sufi"rage. Then I suppose I would 
have leave to agitate it. But the first conserva- 
tive I would meet would say, "you are a fool I 
What are you talking about ? We are all with 



14 



jou !" Gentlemen, you see the miserable soph- 
istry into which men run in striving to escape a 
disagreeable duty. I say to you to night, the is- 
sue will not divide us. The heavens will not 
fall if justice is done. All through the war we 
disagreed as to arming the negroes, striking at 
slavery, and the confiscation of rejel property, 
but we so hated the rebels that we kept our eye 
on their guns, looking neither to the right nor 
to the left. So it will be now. If any Union 
man should leave us on this issue, and Join the 
enemy, he will very soon grow ashamed of hi> 
crowd and return, and on a decent piobation I 
would take him back. We shall not divide. 
This is my prophecy, and I prophesy further 
that in less than twelve months some of the men 
who now beg me not to spring the question will 
swear they sprung it first. ( Laughter. ) I form 
this opinion from my political experience. 

HAS CONGBKSS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE QPES- 
1 1ON? 

And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, I come to 
the most formidable objection of all, in the opin- 
ion of those who urge it, namely : that the ques- 
tion belongs to the States ; that Indiana can de- 
cide for herself whv> shall vote ; Ohio can ; Miss- 
issijipi cm; the eleveu revolted States, lieing.i.U 
of them i/i the Uni:,)i, can determine for them- 
selves exclusively who shall vote ; and that 
therefore, you and I have no concern in the 
matter. I bespeak your special attention to what 
I have to say, for I flatter myself I can make my 
views perfectly intelligible, even to my friend, 
Capt. Kilgour, who filed his bill of discovery 
against me. 

I agree, gentlemen, that the question belongs 
to the States, subject to the reserved right and 
duty of the United States to guarantee Republi- 
can governments to tho States. The States 
might so deal with the right of sufirage as to in- 
voke national intervention ; but I agree to the 
generally accepted proposition, ihat it is a State 
question. I agree further that the revolted dis- 
tricts are in the Union, in one sense. Their ter- 
ritory is there. I have not heard of its removal 
by the rebels, or by earthquake or other convul- 
sion of nature. I agree, too, that the people oc- 
cupying that territory arc in the Union. They 
are not the citizens of any foreign country. They 
are subject to the jurisdiction of the United 
States, and can no more run away from it than a 
man can run away from his shadow. Through 
their treason thev have lo^t their rights in the 
Union, bu'. the Union has lost nnneof its author- 
ity over them. 1 agn e further that no State can 
constitutionolly secede. Our fathers never in- 
tended that the Government might fall to pieces 
at the will or whim of any of its parts. All 
Governments are intended to be perpetual. No 
State, therefore, can conHitutl 7iall>/ secede, any 
more than any oni', of you can morally tell a lie, 
or commit suicide. If, however, you do lie, and 
we can prove ii, the lie is out, though you did it 
immorally ; and if you cut your throat, and the 
breath goes out of your body, I rather think you 
will be dead, seceded to another world, though 
you did not go there constitutionally, or at least 
according to the (lospel. Some of yon may 
have a theory that you would not be dead in the 
case su])posed, but 1 s))cak of the /'c.ct. Your 
theory tliat two and three make four would not 
change the fact of their sum. The truth of the 
matter was well slated by President Lincoln, 
when he said "that tho rebel States are utsidc of 
their proper constitutional relations to the Union. 
They ate, so to speak, outside of that constitU' 
itonal orbit in which they oucy revolved around 



the UnioB, as their center and sun ; and until re- 
stored, they can no more be States in the Union 
than a branch can live when severed from the 
tree. Toward the National Government they 
stand in the relation of territories, and are sub- 
ject entirely to its jurisdiction. 

My first witness on this subject is President 
Johnson. He appoints Provisional Goverr.ors 
for these States; but the Constitution knows 
nothing of any such officer, and he certainly has 
no right to appoint a Governor of any soit for 
any State ift the Union. North Carolina has just 
elected a rebel Governor, over Holden, and asks 
to be recognized at once as a State. The Presi- 
dent tells her to reconstruct awhile firt-t, and 
instructs Holden to hold on. Louisiana last 
year made a Constitution, elected a Governor, 
and sent Senators and Representatives to Wash- 
ington. Almost ev»ry body sa'd she was in. It 
was argued she had never been out, because the 
Constitution would not let heruo out. But Con- 
gress looked at these Senators and Representa- 
tives, and told them tiiey " were not good looking 
and could'ut come in." I believe the State o[ 
Louisiana is now under a military Governor. 
The President tells the rebels they must abolish 
slavery, repudiate their debt, give the negroes 
their testimony. &c , none of which conditions he 
can lawlully exact, if the States are in the Union 
as are Indiana and Ohio. He pardons a rebel 
1; ader into a voter ; but if he can make voters 
out of rebel leaders, can't he make voters of loyal 
men ? And if in any one of these States, he deals 
with the question ol suffrage, is that Slate in the 
Union ? He tells the rebels that certain of them 
shall not vote ; but dorS not the right to say who 
shall not vote, imply the right to say who shall ? 
The President tells the rebels to organize govern- 
ments, elect members of Congress, and then sub- 
mit to Congre.-;s the question of their le^t0l ation. 
Rut could he do that as to Indiana? Ii we should 
make a new Constitution to-day, would it be any 
of the business of Congress ? Certainly we 
should not submit to any question as to i!ie ad- 
mission of duly elected members under the new 
organic law. 

Some of our pirtj' leaders say that the acts 
of the Executive and of Coogress since 
the war have proceeded upon the hypothesis that 
all these States are in; that once in the Union, al- 
ways in the Union. To show the lallacy of this, 
let me instance another fact. In the House of 
Representatives there are '.'C6 members, counting 
the States in revolt. A constitutional quorum is 
119, if I am not mistaken. Rut ever since the 
war we have been legislating with a quorum jf 
94, being a majority of the representatives from 
the States that have not rebelled It follows, 
fiom the theory I am opposing, that our tax laws, 
our conscrij)tion laws— our thousand and one 
laws on which I have been voting for fourj-ears 
—are null and void. You have pretended to 
fight rebels, while all the time you yourselves 
I were trampling the ('onstitution under foot. 
! Your bonds and greenbacks have no value. 
Your constituiional amendment, soon now to be 
consummated, will have no validity, lor not two- 
thirds of Congress ever voted for its submission. 
Do you believe all this? Gentlemen you know 
I'etter. You dare not say it, nor can the nation. 
As I have already said, tlie-e rebel States are 
outside of their Constitutional orbit, and tliey 
never can get back into it without the consent of 
Congress. And right here is where the matter 
ot sulTrage comes under your jurisdiction. Car- 
olina, for example, asks admission. She must 
come as a territory, as to her rights. Sujjposo 
she asks to be restored with Slavery in her Con- 



15 



aUtution. I would see her in Paradise before 1 
would vote to receive her. [Great applause;] 
Suppose she should ask to come in with polyga- 
my. Believing one wife about as many as one 
Christian can get along with, I would not receive 
her. Suppose she should come with cannibal- 
ism, the light of one Copperhead to eat another, 
a thiug not^very oafensive in itself; I would not 
vote fur a man-eating constitution, for loyal men 
might be the victims. [Renewed applause.] 
Carolin. asks to come in, and while I am think- 
ing of the question I remember a clause in the 
Constitution v\ hich say* " the United States ^hall 
gruarantee to everv State a republican form of 
Grovernment." What is a refublican form of 
gov ernment, is a political question exclusively for 
Congress. Well, I look at her Constitution, and 
find that it disfranchises two-thirds of her peo- 
ple, an I they the only loyal ones in her bor- 
der, and gives the ballot to one-third, and they 
rebels, wno ought to have been hung or exiled 
before to-day. Gentlemen, I would decide, with- 
out hesitation, that her Constitution was not re- 
publican i a form or in fact; and I would slam 
the door in her face. "* What would you do with 
her?" you ask. I would have Congress put a 
territorial govtrnment over her, and President 
Johnson to appoint a Chief Justice, a Governor, 
a Marshall, <&c., and in local politics, in electing 
justices, constables, &c., I would set the people 
to voting. If I should allow the rebels to vote, 
I would be sure to checkmate them by the votes 
of loyal negroes ; and thus I would train up the 
people, black and white, to the use of the ballot, 
tf they should fio astray the supervisory power 
of Congress would correct all mistakes; and 
after a while, when a papulation had been se- 
cured fit for State government, I would, if in 
Congress, vote to receive Carolina again into our 
embrace. Some of the States might be received 
sooner, and under less exacting conditions than 
others ; but in all I would want to be assured that 
no future harm to our peace could result from 
any lack of vigilance on our jjari, in prescribing 
necessary conditions. 

And thus, gentlemen, I think I make this 
question of reconstruction as plain as the way to 
your homes. Through your servants in Congress, 
the power is in your hands, unhindered by any 
constitut.onal difficu ty to do exactly what may 
seem to be required. I trust that "by this time 
even my fiiend from Delaware understands my 
position. And I care not what your theory is as 
to the status of the rebel States. Here on the 
admitted ground of the power of Congress to 
prescribe conditions of retum, and to guarantee 
republican governments, the whole question of 
suffrage is your question, and you cannot escape 
it it you would. 

THE LAW OF NATIONS INVOKED. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, if any gentleman 
desires me to fortify my position stUl further, to 
make my point still clearer, I will enderivor to 
gratify him by stating another proposition. I 
give you no mere opinion of mv own, but the 
voice of the nation itself, speaking through its 
highest judicial tribunal two years and a half 
ago, in a case invo ving the constituiioual rights 
of rebels and the law of nations applicable to the 
war. 1 am surprised that so many of our public 
men ignore this decision. The Supreme Court 
of the United States decided that although the 
revolt of the rebels at first was a mere insurrec- 
tion, a great mob, yet when it grew on our hands 
till we had to call out a milium of men to put it 
down and fit out six hundred ships to blockade a 
coast of twenty-five hundred miles, and in dealing 
with it recognized the right of blockade and the 



other ordinary incidents of a foreign war, then 
and thenceforward, it became a civil territo- 
rial conflict, like tjiat of a war with Mexico or 
France; <Aa^ the rebels tchih still liable to be 
hung or otherwise dealt with for treason, took 
upon themselves the further character of pvblic 
enemies, according to the laws of war; and that, 
of course, when conquered, they would be 
conquered enemies, having simply the rights of 
a conquered people. I state the substance of the 
point decided, as £ understand it, in my own 
language. Now, the law of nations declares 
that the rights of a conquered people are exactly 
such rights as the conqueror may graciously be 
pleased to grant. That is all, gentlemen, and I 
am for giving the rebels the full benefit of it. 
When they wagrd a public war against the na- 
tion, and went outside the Constitution, and de- 
fied its power, and rested their cause on the 
naked ground of lawless might ; and when we at 
last met them on their own chosen issue an* 
flogged them, they had no rights left. Uncle 
Samuel had them on their backs in the gutter, 
with his big foot on their necks, and unless by 
his grace and pleasure, they had no longer any 
right but to die. Parson Brownlow, I believe, 
said they had one more right, and that was a di- 
vine right to be damned, after they were dead ; 
but I know nothing about that. I ne»er dabble 
with questions of theology, and profess no skill in 
it; but I know that according to the law of na- 
tions and the laws of war as applied under the 
Constitnlion to this quarrel, the rebels by their 
deleat lost all their rights. State rights, consti- 
tutional rights, civil rights, natural rights, all the 
rights there are, were swallowed up and lost by 
their infernal treason and war. What I have 
said already about the authority of Congress un- 
der the Constitution, I repeat here, as to the au- 
thority of the people under the right of conquest. 
The way is perfectly open to you, unobstructed 
by any constitutional difficulty, any obstacle in 
any form, to do exactly what may seem right in 
your eyes. You can hold the rebels in the strong 
grasp of war till the end and purpose of the v\ ar, 
which is a lasting peace, shall be made sure. 
Are any of you silly enough to grant that after 
they have waged a Irightful war of four years on 
the pretext of State Kights, and we have con- 
quered them, at great cost of blood and money 
as.d wide-spread sorrow in the land, we must 
allow them in the end to set up State rights again 
as a bar to our doing precisely what we please ? 
Did we fight them as a migh y public foe, guided 
by the rules of war and the law of nations, up to 
the moment of the surrender of Gen. Lee, and 
then, by some devilish necromancy, were we 
forced to make a dead halt, and recognize in tne 
rebels the very rights they had sinned away ? 
That doctrine is excellent "for Copperheads, but 
in the name of decency, let no Republican mouth 
it. [Enthusiastic ap'plause.] God forbid ! If 
an assassin assail me, iind after a feaiful strug- 
gle, I prostrate him, and wre-t from him his 
weapon?, shall I let him up, restore to him his 
knile and revolver, and politely ask him about 
terms of peace? Gentlemen, I pray you not lo 
forget the cost of this war. In considering tie 
terms and conditions of peace, do not fbiget the 
rivers oi blood and seas of fire, through which so 
many of our brave legions waded to their death. 
Do noi, I beseech you, so soon forget the widows 
and orphans made to mourn through stricken 
lives to their graves, and the green mounds ui.- 
der which sleep so much of the glory, and 
pride, and beauty of our Israel. And will you 
remember a 1 this, and then turn to tht rebels as 
" misguided fellow-cLtiz.ns," " erring brethren,' ^ 



16 



" wayward sisters," and ask them about the con- 
ditions of peace? Shall we tell them that our 
conquest over them, instead of of stripping them 
of their rights, only restores those rip^hts ? that we 
foug-bt for a military victory, "utterly barren of 
any other results, and that the States to-day in 
revolt are in the Union, with all their rights in- 
hering. State and constitutional, and have never 
been out? Shall we deal with conquered trait- 
ors aud public enemies as equal sovareiirns with 
ourselves, and insult justice and mock God by 
pettifogging their cause ? Gentlemen, I repeat 
it, the rcbtils are in our power, and if we fooli-h- 
iy surrender it we shall be the most recreant 
people on earth. The glorious fiuitsof our vic- 
tory are within our grasp. We have only to 
reach forth our hands to possess them. Let me 
plead with you to do your auty . Breathe intoi I he 
hearts of your rulers your own spirit of earnest- 



ness and resolution. Compass this Administra- 
tion about wiih that persistent pressure which 
at last gave the country a saving policy of the 
war under Mr. Lincoln. Do not shrink from the 
duty (if frank and friendly criticism of the con- 
duct of your public servants, when you see them 
in danger of going astray. Thunder it in the 
ears cl your President and Congress that you de- 
mand the hanging, certainly the exile, of the 
great rebel leaders, the confiscation and distribu- 
tion of their great landed estates ; and that the 
governing power in the South shall be placed in 
the hands of the friends, and not the enemies of the 
nation. Do this, and the result wilt be a p>eace 
with the South as lasting as her hills, and our 
Republic will be in reality, for the first time in 
her history, the model republic of the world. 
[General and long continued applause ] 



^ 



